Rough Around the Edges

by Marie Ferrarella

  “Like this.” Briefly, he took her hand again. “Or this.” O’Rourke cupped her elbow as if escorting her from a car. “Or maybe, if the INS man is boring suspicious holes into us, like this.” He slid his fingers along her cheek in a gesture he remembered seeing shared between his parents on those rare occasions when they had a moment to themselves and the responsibilities weren’t crushing them beneath their weight.

  Something small and intense moved through her, unfurling fledgling wings that still managed to flap strongly. She dismissed the feeling as something associated with the after-effects of giving birth. What else could it be?

  “All right,” she agreed quietly, praying she wasn’t going to live to regret this. “Do what you have to do. I’ll marry you.”

  As a surge of pure, unadulterated joy and triumph spiked through him, O’Rourke fought the very real urge to kiss her.

  But he didn’t, knowing it would be misinterpreted and ruin everything.

  Simon Gallagher abandoned the programming equation that had his eyes almost crossing and rose from his desk like a man who had suddenly found he’d been transported to a foreign land when he wasn’t looking. He stared at O’Rourke, a man he’d known almost from the first moment the latter had arrived in the country.

  “You want me to be what?”

  “My best man,” O’Rourke repeated. He would have preferred having this exchange after hours, over two bottles of dark beer at the Shamrock, but time was of the essence and he couldn’t afford to waste any. Throwing a wedding together took time. “You’re the best I can find on such short notice,” he told the smaller man dryly, “so you’ll have to do.”

  Simon shook his head, mystified. “O’Rourke, O’Rourke, O’Rourke, you’re going too fast for me. You left here two hours ago to have lunch and then you come back—just after I’ve made up my mind to drag Newport Bay looking for your body because you’ve never been more than fifteen minutes away from your desk since we found this loft—to tell me that you’re planning to get married.” Getting up from his desk, he came around to his best friend’s side, more than a little concerned. “What happened to you while you were gone? Did some alien creatures abduct you like in that show Mavis is always watching?”

  O’Rourke was well aware of Simon’s sister’s viewing preferences. The choice of words seemed almost ironic to him.

  “No, but I’m trying to avoid being ‘abducted’ as an alien and sent on my way.” He had, and always would have, strong ties to Ireland. He wanted to go home, but to visit and of his own free will, not because he was being forced to go.

  Simon crossed his arms before his chest, studying his friend and business associate. “So I take it this isn’t a love match?”

  “The only thing I love is my work and my family, not necessarily in that order. And I tolerate you on occasion,” he added.

  Simon ignored the barb. “And this woman you’re marrying, she understands that?”

  They were alone in this section of the loft. Nonetheless, O’Rourke lowered his voice even more. “It’s a business arrangement,” he allowed. “But that’s just something between you, me and her, understood? As far as everyone else is concerned, I’m marrying the mother of my child and living up to my responsibilities.”

  O’Rourke glanced back toward the other end of the loft, where the rest of his crew was working. He intended to have them all attend the wedding, every last mother’s son and daughter of them. To bear witness to the marriage.

  Though he’d been trying to find a solution to O’Rourke’s problem himself, Simon played devil’s advocate. “Thirteen days before you’re scheduled deportation. Seems a mite convenient, don’t you think?”

  “Nine,” O’Rourke corrected him. He couldn’t arrange to get the church before then, and if he was going to pull this off, he had to include as many trappings in this wedding as possible. “And life’s a lot stranger than fiction.”

  Maybe this might work at that. Who knew? “That it is, boyo, that it is,” Simon agreed, affecting a strong brogue. “Okay, you can count on me to stand up for you.” He clapped O’Rourke on the back. “I just hope you know what you’re doing.”

  “Do you have any idea what you’re doing?” Horror echoed in Sylvia Mason’s voice.

  “Yes. I’m getting married,” Kitt told her simply.

  Sylvia had come by just before visiting hours were over for the night to see how she was doing and if she could cheer Kitt up. The last thing in the world she expected was to be invited to Kitt’s wedding.

  “I’ve never known giving birth could make a person go insane.” Sylvia shook her head incredulously. “Who is he, Kitt? Do you know anything about him? How do you know he won’t slit your throat while you’re sleeping?”

  That was not what she needed to hear. She had enough doubts plaguing her. “You have got to get yourself assigned to another news desk, Sylvia.”

  Sylvia frowned. “You’re not answering my question, Kitt.”

  No, and she wasn’t going to. She wasn’t about to start entertaining absurd thoughts. Her mind was made up. It had to be. For Shawna’s sake. “I wanted you for my maid of honor, not my interrogator.”

  “You’re in luck, I’m having a two-for-one sale.” She grabbed both of Kitt’s hands, forcing her best friend to look at her. “Look, my friend, I’m not going to be your maid of honor, I’m not even letting you out of this hospital room tomorrow until you tell me who this guy is and why you’re marrying him.”

  She knew Sylvia meant well. She was just concerned about her. “I already told you. He’s the man who delivered my baby. The man I named Shawna after.”

  “So?” Sylvia didn’t see that as an explanation for the drastic step Kitt was proposing to take. “Send him a gift basket with a thank-you card attached. Don’t marry him, for God’s sakes.”

  Kitt hesitated, debating with herself. She could trust Sylvia. “Sylvia, you have to promise me that what I’m about to tell you doesn’t leave this room.”

  “You’re beginning to sound like a cheap thriller. Okay, okay.” Sylvia raised her hand in solemn promise. “Not leaving the room, not a word. Now, tell me. What’s the big mystery?”

  Kitt took a deep breath. “He’s about to be deported—”

  “Oh, great. And he’s marrying you to stay in this country.”

  In the face of Sylvia’s annoyance, Kitt suddenly felt protective of O’Rourke, although for the life of her she wouldn’t have been able to explain why. The man didn’t really mean anything to her.

  “And I’m marrying him so that I can take a little time getting back on my feet.”

  Sylvia cut her short. “You can do that in my apartment.”

  Kitt smiled at the other woman. “You don’t have enough room in your apartment for two fleas to go square dancing, Sylvia. Believe me, this is for the best.” Her resolve wavering, she needed support, not arguments. “Don’t give me a hard time, Sylvia. Just say you’ll be my maid of honor.” She raised her eyes in silent supplication. “I really need you in my corner about this.”

  “Okay.” Sylvia sighed loudly, relenting. “But I plan to make periodic checks on you to make sure he hasn’t stuffed you into a planter or something.”

  Relieved, Kitt laid back against her pillows. “I can trust him, Sylvia.”

  Sylvia frowned. “As I remember, you said the same thing about Jeffrey.”

  “I was in love with Jeffrey, Sylvia. I’m not in love with O’Rourke.”

  Sylvia sighed, shaking her head. “Perfect way to start a marriage, no love, no expectations.”

  “No disappointment,” Kitt interjected.

  “I hope you know what you’re doing, Kitt.”

  So did she, Kitt thought. So did she.

  Chapter Six

  “It’s not much.” Opening the door to his apartment, O’Rourke pocketed his key and stepped back to allow Kitt and the baby room to come in.

  He glanced at his watch as he closed the door behind her. He’d taken precious time of
f to pick her up at the hospital and bring her and the baby directly here. There was a conference call he had to be back for within the hour.

  Instinctively, Kitt held the infant in her arms closer to her. She felt as if she’d stepped right into the heart of pure chaos. There were books and papers everywhere, intermixed with empty pizza boxes, journals and clothes that had fallen miles short of making it into the laundry hamper.

  Kitt’s eyes widened as she took it all in. How could anyone live like this? There were things on every surface as far as the eye could see.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” she replied. “Looks like a lot to me.”

  “You’re talking about the mess,” he guessed, chagrined. He’d meant to clean it all up last night, but he’d stayed too late at the loft. The trouble was, he had good intentions, but good intentions took time and he never had any of that. Work ate it all up.

  She turned to stare at him. He didn’t look like a slovenly man. “You didn’t tell me you lived in a frat house.”

  He wasn’t sure exactly what she was alluding to, but he figured it had something to do with the state of his living quarters. He supposed that any cryptic comment was probably well deserved. He’d never gotten the knack of keeping house.

  O’Rourke paused to set down the suitcase he was carrying, the one that he’d discovered Kitt had hastily thrown together just before attempting to drive herself to the hospital. He’d gone back to retrieve it for her yesterday, taking a mechanic friend of his along to see what could be done about her car. A new alternator had resurrected it and brought it back to the land of the living. He’d had it driven over to his apartment complex, where it now resided in guest parking.

  Shrugging, he looked around, trying to see it through her eyes. It did look pretty awful. “This is the first time I’ve had this much room to myself and I guess I got a little carried away.”

  In Kitt’s estimation, he looked slightly embarrassed. There was hope for him, she decided. Her brother had attracted chaos like this and had thought nothing of it. She’d always felt sorry for whoever wound up marrying Perry.

  O’Rourke picked up a pair of underwear and tucked it out of sight beneath a shirt that straddled the arm of the sofa. “I was going to clean up, but there was this bug at the office.”

  Probably some here, too, she thought, looking around cautiously. “Bug? As in something needing to be exterminated?”

  It took him a second to catch the misunderstanding. “No, as in glitch.” He tried again. “As in an impediment.” He never had gotten around to telling her what he was working on. Maybe it was time. He picked up her suitcase again. “You might as well know something about the man you’re marrying….”

  His voice seem to fade slightly as the phrase jumped out at her.

  The man you’re marrying.

  It almost sounded surreal to her. She was marrying someone because she had to. It was like something out of the nineteenth century. With effort, Kitt pulled herself back, trying to focus on what O’Rourke was saying to her. Something about computer systems and innovations. Speed. RAM. All the buzz words that were so important to the Silicon Valley generation. Somehow they had all become of secondary importance to her in the last few days.

  She looked down at the sleeping baby in her arms. Now there was nothing more important in her life than Shawna.

  Raising her eyes to O’Rourke again, Kitt tried to look as if she was interested in what he was saying.

  She didn’t fool him for a second. “Your eyes are glazing over.” He laughed. “Sorry, I tend to get carried away when I’m talking about Emmie.”

  “Emmie?”

  His mind was always jumping ahead to things. At times it was hard keeping track of what he had and what he hadn’t already said. And what he’d only thought he’d said out loud.

  “That’s what we’ve nicknamed the prototype computer. Short for Emerald. The company’s name is Emerald Computers.”

  Well, that made sense, seeing where he was from, she thought. “Good thing to know.” She looked around uncertainly at the wall-to-wall mess. “Um, where are we going to be staying?”

  “We?”

  Lowering her eyes, Kitt indicated the baby in her arms. “Shawna and I.” She was almost afraid to venture out of the living room into the hall. “There is something beyond this, isn’t there?”

  Caught up in his explanation about his work, he’d almost forgotten why she was here. There were times when his mind felt as disorganized as his apartment was. “Oh, right, sure. This way.”

  Careful to circumvent the three-foot-high stack of technical books that were doing a shaky imitation of the Leaning Tower of Pisa in the center of the room, O’Rourke led the way to the rear of the apartment. He brought them to a room that looked as if it was little bigger than an expanded broom closet. A very crowded expanded broom closet, now that he looked at it through her eyes.

  “There’s no bed in it now,” he apologized. “But I can get one. Right now I’ve made it into my den.”

  She wouldn’t have known what to call it herself, other than a disaster. Trying not to jostle Shawna, she peered cautiously into the room. “How can you tell?”

  He laughed under his breath. He had that coming, too. “Housekeeping was never my long suit.”

  She looked at him. “I don’t think I would have had trouble guessing that one.”

  O’Rourke made a hasty reassessment, then mentally retraced his steps and pointed to the room opposite the den. “Maybe for the time being, you’d better stay in the bedroom.”

  She looked at him suspiciously, still not a hundred percent convinced that she had made the right move, agreeing to come here, much less to marry him. Sylvia’s studio apartment was looking better and better to her all the time. Sylvia knew where to find the trash can. “Where will you be sleeping?”

  “On the sofa.” He nodded in the general direction. “In the living room.”

  She tried to remember actually seeing one. “There was a sofa out there?”

  “It’s not as bad as all that,” he protested, then paused. “All right, I suppose it is as bad as all that, but I haven’t had the time to fix things up, what with working and planning the wedding and all.”

  Kitt turned around to look at him. “You’re ‘planning’ the wedding? I thought we’d just go to some justice of the peace….” She’d envisioned something that involved the three of them and two witnesses, Sylvia and whoever he decided to bring with him. This sounded as if it had the potential for a great deal more.

  As O’Rourke moved into the room, he began to clear things away. It was a task steeped in futility. As one heap became smaller, another grew larger. “It’ll look better if it’s done in a church, with friends looking on.” He tossed several shirts into a corner, out of the way for the time being. “Speaking of which, have you got any friends you’ll be wanting to invite?”

  She and Jeffrey had moved here a little more than a year ago from San Francisco. She hadn’t had time to make many friends other than Sylvia. Jeffrey and her career had taken up a great deal of her time.

  Fat lot of good that had done her, she thought.

  Kitt fought back the wave of self-pity that threatened to overcome her. If she could just keep ahead of it every time it reared its head, eventually she would outlast it, she promised herself. The trick was to keep tap dancing as fast as she could.

  And to remember never to trust another man as long as she lived.

  “Just a few,” she told him. Shawna stirred, but to Kitt’s relief, the infant went on sleeping. Kitt began to rock slightly as she looked around the room again. “We’re going to need a crib.”

  He set her suitcase down in front of the pile of shirts. “You haven’t got one in your apartment?”

  She shook her head. “Never got around to buying one.” The reason for it was silly, she supposed. “My mother handed down this superstition—buy things for the baby and maybe the baby—”

  “Won’t come,” he finished, noddi
ng his head as he substituted a euphemism for the final word. There was no need to explain superstitions to him. He’d grown up with them. “My mother had the same superstition. Of course, she didn’t have a chance to get rid of the baby things for years after I was born. Didn’t stop the little ones from coming.”

  Moving around her, O’Rourke opened the bottom drawer of his bureau and shook out the contents onto the floor. Socks, all singular, spread out on the carpet as he went out into the hall and began to rummage through the linen closet.

  Now what? She followed him out into the hall. “Um, don’t you think there’re enough things on the floor already?”

  “I’ll find a place for them,” he promised, walking back into the bedroom. He ignored the pile of socks and crouched down over the drawer he’d just removed. Carefully, he spread out first two towels and then a folded sheet in it. “Right now, we need a place for the baby to sleep.”

  She stared at the wooden rectangle. “The drawer?” she asked incredulously.

  He glanced at Kitt over his shoulder. Obviously the woman had never had to make do. He was an expert at it.

  O’Rourke rose to his feet. “According to my da, that was where I spent the first month and a half of my life until he and Ma got enough money together to buy a secondhand crib.”

  It sounded like something out of a fairy tale. “You slept in the drawer?”

  “Like a baby,” he quipped, taking hers from her. “All right, love,” he whispered softly to the infant, “this is your new bed, at least for tonight.” Gently, he laid Shawna down in her newly arranged bed. She looked like an angel, he thought. Rising, he stood back to admire his handiwork. Shawna continued sleeping. “She likes it.”

  “I suppose it’s all right for now,” Kitt allowed guardedly. She looked toward the king-size bed that dominated the room. Like the rest of the apartment, it was littered with books, papers and discarded clothing. “You’re absolutely sure there’s a bed under there somewhere.”

  He winked at her, sending a sudden, unannounced shiver shimmying down her spine. “I have it on the best authority.” And now, he thought, looking at his watch again, it was time to get going if he was going to make that conference. He began backing out. “I’ve had your car brought around. It’s parked in guest parking. There’s a box of diapers there,” he pointed vaguely to an opposite corner of the room. “And here’s an extra set of keys to the apartment.” He’d almost forgotten to give them to her. “Take-out numbers are posted above the phone in the kitchen. Order anything you want. You’ll find money in the drawer next to the knives. I have to go.”